


If Only

by flipflop_diva



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Angst and Feels, Best Friends, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6324937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Christina imagines. Imagines what it would have been like if things had been different. </p><p>Set post-canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> This one got a little sadder than yesterday's, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless! Happy Purim Fest day 2!

Sometimes Christina imagines. Imagines what it would have been like if things had been different. 

Sometimes she can see all of it, as if it were actually happening right then and there. She can see their apartments, next door to each other on the highest floor of the Hancock building, the only thing separating them from each other being the thin white walls and the narrow stretch of hallway. Their apartments would be small, but they would be bright. The sun would shine directly into the glass windows during the day, and they would often find themselves standing in front of them, basking in the sun, and looking out. 

When they weren’t by the windows, they would be sitting on the small balconies that hang off the side of each of their apartments, and they would sit out there, the four of them — Tris and Tobias, her and Will. They would sip on their glasses of wine made from the grapes in the vineyards that have begun to grow where Amity once used to reside and watch for hours as Chicago transformed below them. 

They would watch as broken-down buildings are taken apart and shiny high-rises go up in their place. They would watch as the cracked and damaged streets get new pavement and new lights and become a place where people dare to be seen at all times of day.

From their apartments side-by-side, they would watch as people — the new people of Chicago, some of whom are old people who have been there for years but some of whom are those who came recently to see what all the fuss is about — would walk the streets, go to work, live their lives. Live their own lives, lives where they are free to be who they want to be and who maybe they have been meant to be all along.

And as the four of them would sit there, up on their balconies outside their side-by-side apartments, and watch the people of their city go about their lives, they would know they’d had a hand in making this new reality possible. Maybe they would be proud of that or maybe they would be sad as they thought back on all the horrors and the pain they’d had to go through before they could come out on the other side, but more likely, they would be both. Proud and sad, hopeful yet sorrowful.

But then she and Tris would catch each other’s eyes as they sat on their balcony drinking their wine and they would smile at each other, that secret smile they had sometimes, and they would understand exactly what the other one was thinking, because they had been through it together and were thinking the exact same thing. Maybe instinctively their hands would stretch out then, toward each other. Maybe their fingers would brush, and a sense of warmth and comfort would rush through them and they would know that everything was how it should be. 

Maybe they would get up then, go inside together, make dinner together on this night because they could do things like this now, and maybe they would call the men in when it was ready and the four of them would eat and laugh and smile. Maybe she and Tris would go back outside after the sun fell and the stars dotted the sky, sitting together and talking while the men cleaned up, and then they would say goodnight — not goodbye, just goodnight — and all four of them would go to bed, and Christina would lie next to Will, with her best friend just a few yards away in her apartment that is right next door, and she would feel happy and comforted and at peace.

Sometimes Christina imagines this, imagines this world. Sometimes she thinks she would like to live in this world …

But as it happens, during those times she gets lost in a world of imagination, she is drawn back to reality by something slipping into her hand. A glass. Wine. Made from the grapes in the vineyards that have risen from the lands that Amity used to care for.

She looks up, not to see Tris standing there, but to see Cara watching her, an expression of empathy on her face, of understanding. Cara is dating Tobias now, if one could call that dating. It’s weird to see them together, but they seem to understand each other and Christina wants her friends to be happy. They both deserve that, even if it sometimes leaves a pang in her heart.

Cara pulls up a chair and sits down beside Christina on Christina’s balcony of her apartment in the Hancock building, her eyes looking out over the city.

“I miss them, too,” Cara says softly after a moment, but she doesn’t look at Christina or stretch her hand out so their fingers can touch.

“Yeah,” Christina says, and she sips her drink, letting the picture in her mind fade. 

There really is nothing else to say.

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>   
> 


End file.
